The Walking Dead: The Loudest Secret
by 21melpomene
Summary: Having found a "safer" place for Carl to rest, Rick and Michonne privately discuss various topics including their clandestine, yet tender relationship. The story unfolds during a quieter period of time in The Walking Dead Season 4 finale, "A," specifically before The Claimers ambush Rick's group. (Lengthy one-shot, gentle tone, focuses greatly on "Richonne.")


**A/N**: While randomly trolling the Internet, I found a plea asking anyone with "feels" to write more "Richonne" fanfiction, so here I am. Coupled with that request and the interesting theory that Rick and Michonne, unbeknownst to anyone else, are already a couple, I penned this scene. I've been writing for years (as I'm sure most of you have been, too), but I've never published a fanfic or even written a romance before, so this is a new experience all around. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoy it, and in the playful words of Talking Dead guest Yvette Nicole Brown, "'GET ON BOARD [the Richonne ship]!'"

**Disclaimer**: I own neither "The Walking Dead" nor the rights to any of its characters or material (AMC, Robert Kirkman, and their affiliates reserve all rights).

Once he'd finished his meager meal, Carl stood up to stretch.

"We've still got about a day until we hit Terminus, right?"

"Yeah," Rick drawled, glancing up from their small fire. "You'd better get some rest. It's late."

"I was thinking about turnin' in," Carl admitted, "but I could stand watch if you want me to. You and Michonne gave me the lion's share of that rabbit, so I've got more energy to burn. I could probably stay up later…" His sentence trailed off as he focused on deciphering his father's grin. Condescension? No.

_Pride_.

Though he was standing out of the flames' reach, Carl felt warm.

"…I could probably stay up later than either of you guys."

"You callin' us old?"

"A little."

Rick shot him a look. "You watch yourself, mister."

Carl's self-congratulatory smile, framed by starless sky, set the night alight.

Awed by the sight, Rick mentally snapped a picture of his son and gestured toward the battered blue car. "Now go on and get some sleep. It's way past your bedtime."

The teen's eyes widened in mock surprise. "Did you just tell a joke?"

Rick sighed, muttering, "Well, I guess that's a matter of perspective."

Carl snickered.

"You waiting for someone to tuck you in?" a voice half called, half whispered from the edge of the forest.

Michonne emerged from the dark tangle of trees, sheathing her katana. She crouched next to Rick, placing her blade at her feet before removing another from her back pocket and offering it to its owner. He accepted the knife with a nod.

Carl watched his friend warm her hands by the fire. Michonne never ceased to amaze him. Prior to disappearing into the woods to clear the expanse of immediate threats, she'd informed them she was also looking to gather any animal bones she ran across as, theoretically, the three of them could whittle the bones into sharp, easy-to-conceal weapons. It appeared as if they wouldn't be able to execute this plan after all, but the young man regarded the concept itself as brilliant.

"Couldn't salvage any-a those rabbit bones?" asked Rick.

Michonne shook her head once. "No. Too brittle. Didn't see any other carcasses either."

"What about the walking kind?" Carl inquired.

"Ah, well yes. I did see those," Michonne corrected herself, "but just two." She turned to his father. "They were nearly blind. Extremely emaciated. I waited about ten minutes after putting them down. It's quiet over there, and we'll be facing this side of the forest."

Rick instinctively scanned the brush across the road, but relaxed after surveying only stillness and again nodded his approval. He caught Carl trying with all his might to stifle a yawn.

"All right, you. Michonne's back and we'll be fine, ya hear?"

The katana-wielding warrior lowered her head and smiled to herself.

"Well, if you insist…" Carl stretched one last time and, to his surprise, his back cracked. "Ohhhh," he uttered in equal discomfort and satisfaction.

Michonne huffed a laugh while a simpering Rick cocked his head and asked, "Who's the old man now, huh?"

"What?"

"He called us old."

Michonne's jaw dropped, her expression contorting into a mask of exaggerated rage. She grabbed a handful of leaves from the ground and heaved them in Carl's direction. As he shielded himself from her fierce onslaught, he was careful to laugh quietly.

"Get outta here," Michonne grumbled.

"You heard her," Rick assented.

Carl stuck his tongue out and received two even sillier faces in response.

"Real mature, guys," he scoffed, ambling backward.

Michonne warmly dismissed him: "Goodnight, Carl."

"'Night."

"G'night," Rick echoed a tad too eagerly.

With a small smile, Carl eased the car door open, tipped his father's hat, and slid inside the vehicle.

Rick and Michonne exchanged amused yet observant glances at the ramshackle shelter and their surroundings as the car creaked and groaned while Carl worked to get himself situated. Several minutes later, the squeaks ceased. Michonne gave Rick a celebratory thumbs-up, to which Rick responded with another grin, another nod, and more than a little relief.

Time crawled by slowly, leaving a stinging chill in its wake. Both Michonne and Rick had begun to shudder by the time he decided to check on Carl. As Rick stiffly approached the car, his fellow survivor collected nearby twigs and sticks in order to foster a stronger blaze for their miniscule camp.

The boy lay on his side, his back pressed against the blue-gray upholstery. His father judged his sleep not only to be sound but also reasonably tranquil. Consequently, Rick did not hesitate to add this image to the photo album in his mind. He spotted his sheriff's hat propped upward on the faraway floor mat. The rim sat a mere inch away from Carl's outstretched hand.

Rick rooted himself outside the unbroken window and stared inside.

Michonne observed. Though she'd already finished tending the fire, she neither nattered nor moved. She was content just to watch.

The increasingly cool conditions ultimately roused Rick.

"You ready?" he asked, returning to their miniature campfire.

"Yeah."

"You're goin' first tonight."

"Rick..."

"I insist. Come on." He sank to his knees, pushed back the logs on which they'd sat to eat dinner, tugged the tan supply bag into place, and looked up at his partner expectantly.

"You look like a puppy," Michonne teased. She joined him on the leaf-littered ground.

He cocked his head slightly, imploringly. "Don't make me beg…"

Feigning exasperation, Michonne rolled her eyes but reclined, adjusting the lumpy bag underneath her cheek. Rick zipped up his coat and positioned himself behind her. The duo curved their bodies inward toward the paltry flames. Michonne took the arm Rick had wrapped around her and tucked as much of the limb as she could beneath her. Additionally, she budged the bag backward with her left fist so Rick had a place to rest his head. He obliged and took the opportunity to whisper a joke—or his best attempt at a joke—in her ear.

"Woof, woof."

Michonne snorted. "…Really?"

"_You_ said it,'" Rick accused softly.

"Now I'm wishing I hadn't."

Though the couple was not face-to-face, each half could feel the other beaming, joint amusement written in their body language as well as their breath.

Wit, much like admiration, empathy, and a mutual love for Rick's children, had turned out to be a deciding factor in Rick and Michonne's choice to establish a relationship. Ever since they'd returned to King's County—ever since Michonne had proven, through her actions with Carl, that she was worthy of both respect _and_ trust—they'd felt a friendship blossoming. Rick joked with her that day. It had been his first crack at humor in weeks: a couple of subtle lines he'd chosen to extend to her because he knew that she'd earned it, that _they'd_ earned a scrap of levity. Interestingly, and to his surprise, it had been an easy gift to give.

Rick liked that he didn't have to try so hard with Michonne, and she too enjoyed the simplicity of their dynamic. Their relationship had a natural candidness, most poignantly expressed by Michonne's understanding of the heartrending decisions this leader had been forced to make—and chose to rescind—in the midst of his wife's passing as well as Rick's subsequent revelation that he'd rescued this woman for arcane reasons beyond her possession of baby formula.

The connection superseded friendship in the months following the fall of Woodbury. Weather and new residents put a strain on supplies. People became weak and irrational, pilfering food or accusing others of theft or both. A number of imported survivors who weren't murdered or banished for murder succumbed to the cold or to particularly stealthy walkers that had found a way out of the prison tombs. Haunted no longer by visions but by the ghosts of other mistakes and wilted hope, Rick came to appreciate the gentle yet solid support Michonne would proffer: an attentive ear, a caress of the hand, a discreet zinger in the evening to distract from the howl of winter wind and looming corpses outside. Her mere presence—just her sitting with him—was enough, but when she locked onto his sky blue eyes and unlocked his spirit with such power and perception, it was _more_ than enough.

He loved her and in her, he saw his love reflected, amplified, extended to children who weren't even hers. In him, she saw something she'd avoided adding to her arsenal of survival methods, an element of the human condition she'd been too practical and too frightened to face alone, but one she wished to brave with Rick, Carl, Judith, and the prison community at her side: _hope_.

Eventually winter waned and the snow thawed, as did Rick and Michonne, their relationship falling into place unaffectedly, yet with secrecy at its center. Carl grew closer to Michonne with each passing day, but his mother's death was still raw in his mind; neither his natal nor his surrogate parent saw a need to burden or possibly distract him or anyone else from continuing to fortify the group. They took care not to perform tasks together too frequently and slept in separate cells, consummating their union only under the rarest of circumstances. Nevertheless, they were able to communicate in public the same way they did in private: with their _eyes_, and in each other's gazes they stored the loudest secret left at the end of the world.

"You know, Carl always wanted a dog. I meant to get 'im one before…all this."

They were both dumbstruck at how quickly and randomly Rick's tone had sobered.

"What stopped you?"

"He wasn't ready for the responsibility, didn't commit to takin' care-a thangs. I mean, it was our own faults, Lori's and mine…we never made him earn that trust."

"He's got it now, hasn't he?"

Rick felt equally guilt-ridden and justified for pausing.

"…My respect, yes. My trust…"

"He's come a long way. He became a leader amongst the children we brought in from Woodbury. He helped you defend the prison when the herds tore down the fences and took care of himself while you were incapacitated. From what you've said, he saved _my _life when I first arrived."

She sensed Rick beginning to tense up, most likely at recollecting the regrettable events that had transpired shortly after Lori's brutal death, all of which had peaked not only with Rick's initial choice to give Michonne to the Governor, but also with the supplementary deaths of T-Dog, Merle, and Andrea. Remaining calm herself, Michonne reached down and interlocked her fingers with his.

"This isn't a guilt-trip, Rick," she assured him, "I just wanna make sure you're sure when you answer my question."

The deeper he fell into her aura, the more he reconnected to her prevailing and absolute forgiveness.

She felt his body relax.

"He went out of his way to save that man earlier today. It was dangerous, too dangerous—"

"But his heart was in the right place."

The woman in his arms flipped around to face him, her dark irises shining with conviction. "He's not the boy who gunned down that Woodbury kid. Not anymore."

Looking down at her now, at her resolved beauty, Rick found his previous hesitation hard to fathom.

"I believe he's earned that trust," he determined. The smile in his eyes disappeared. "Only question is, can I earn back his?"

"Well, that depends," Michonne said frankly. "I suggest you work on getting him that dog. The apocalypse is one thing, but depriving the boy of his promised pet? That's just sick, Rick."

"And how am I supposed to catch a dog?"

"Why you askin' me? You know I like cats."

"Yeah, I know, I know. Should be out lookin' for chocolate pudding—I come across that, I could catch it real easy."

"I can't believe he ate that whole thing."

"Me either."

"You didn't see one spoonful?"

"Not one."

Michonne's quavering form, racked with the pressure of suppressed giggles, was all it took for Rick to start laughing, too. It hurt them to hold it in, but never had an ache felt so good.

After what seemed like ages of battling a global graveyard with spectral expressions of joy and, ironically, life, Michonne and Rick decided they'd tempted fate—and walkers—enough and simmered down. They held one another in snug silence until Rick could no longer control his oddly compelling urge both to disrupt and prolong the calm by remarking on it.

"I love laughin' with you, Michonne. You make me—and Carl—remember what it feels like, make us remember that it's important," he murmured, "but I like bein' quiet with you, too."

His partner let loose a stray chuckle. "We are never quiet." She paused to mull over her assertion and soon resurfaced with a more appropriate assessment. "We're deafening."

Rick's voice wheedled its way into a higher octave as he simultaneously smiled and spoke: "Got our own secret sound?"

"Yeah."

Rick sighed serenely.

"Believe me when I say I'm not in a hurry, because we need to get him settled, but have you thought about when Carl is gonna hear us?"

Rick's haggardly handsome features turned pensive.

"Well, for all I know, he could be hearin' us right now," he said evasively, removing his arm from Michonne's side to prop himself up. He strained to get a peek inside the car but saw nothing beyond the cracked windshield except darkness.

Michonne lay patiently as her partner lowered himself back to the ground and rearranged himself to fit her figure.

"I have thought about it and I don't want to spring this on him just yet. Carl loves you, but it's like you say: We need to get him someplace safe first. Maybe that someplace will be Terminus; if it's not, we're gonna need him to focus on thangs a lot bigger 'n us."

"I understand," said Michonne, and she did. Father and son were just getting each other back. The two of them had been disconnected for so long, and her relationship with Rick was the last thing she wanted to stand in the way of their reunification.

"But we'll tell 'im, in time."

Andre flitted through Michonne's mind.

She nodded.

For the next hour the couple reposed in relative peace, basking in the luminous, milky moonlight and the tepid glow of their humble blaze, captivated by their song of silence, at the heart of which resounded rhythmic pulses and choral breaths. They exchanged nothing and yet everything all at once, and despite having barely eaten, the last thing either felt was empty.

Rick could have lived there forever, but he knew well enough not to tease himself. Sooner or later the concert ends, and players and patrons must leave.

"Encore…" he mumbled.

"Mmm."

Even her grunt was music to his ears.

"We can't fall asleep like this," he declared foggily.

"We can't fall asleep," Michonne insisted. "We can't risk it." Fully alert, she began to lift herself up.

"I know, I'm sorry, I'm just so comfortable…" Rick buried the last word between Michonne's shoulders, playfully tightening his embrace.

Michonne smiled and arched her body in a half-hearted attempt to escape. She allowed him to nestle against her for another handful of minutes until gently but palpably slapping his right hand.

"All right, time to switch."

"I'm guessin' you didn't hear me earlier, the part about me bein' comfortable?"

"It's only fair. Anyway, I'm too hot."

Realizing what she'd intimated, she promptly shifted herself to face him and pointed a finger warningly at his grinning face.

Michonne arose, allowing Rick to wriggle closer to the diminutive orange flames. She scraped a twig or two into the fire with her boot before kneeling down and spooning him, hugging his numbing backside to her toasty torso.

"Ahh, yep, okay. I do believe I'm even cozier, thank you, ma'am."

"I'm tellin' ya, it's warm by the fire."

"I haven't been this comfy since the pri—"

Michonne waited for him to finish; he should and he would.

"The prison." He contemplated sharing his next musing. "I just realized somethin': Our secret saved your life."

Curious, she tilted her head forward to address him. "How?"

Rick refused to meet her eyes. "If the Governor had known… He chose Hershel because he thought it would hurt me more."

The two of them lay mute, united in guilt and sorrow.

"I couldn't save them, Michonne," Rick finally croaked. "Not the prison, not Hershel, not even my own daughter."

His partner pressed him to her tightly, as if trying to wring the anguish from his body.

"It was _not_ your fault. It was the Governor's." Her tone indicated she was scowling.

"Right there, in that moment, it was _my_ responsibility. The Governor called me out, and it was up to me to prevent a war…and I failed."

"Rick, we all lost that day, but losing doesn't mean you failed. You _tried_. You lost, but you didn't fail, you understand? What's more, you're still here and _Carl_ is still here, which is, whether he realizes it or not, largely thanks to you and what you've taught him."

He clasped her leather-gloved hand. "And you."

"And everyone. It takes a village, you know."

Rick allowed himself a tiny smile. "And every one of us made a difference, but it was Hershel—he taught me how to come back, for Judith and for Carl. He didn't just show us how to plant seeds and raise livestock—he showed us how to _grow life_. Heh. That man was a real force-a nature."

A mixture of emotions brewed inside Michonne. She clamped her eyes shut in an effort to block out the imprinted image of Hershel's reanimated head.

She exhaled raggedly. "I should've done more. It was a mistake to stop looking. I could've found him—I could've stopped this."

"No."

"I dunno why—"

"_No_. We…we weren't all gonna make it. We tried, we did, but the Governor…he was too far gone. He didn't have what we had, _who_ we had. You couldn't've stopped it any more than I coulda. Hershel, h-he knew, he…"

Michonne stroked his hand twice with her thumb. "He knew, and he wasn't afraid. He was proud of you."

"…Thank you."

"And he's at peace."

Rick considered her statement, absently twisting his face heavenward before leaning in close. "Did you…?"

"I did. Before I found you and Carl."

He thanked her this time with his lips.

Rick and Michonne proceeded to spend a fair stretch of time commemorating the memory of their family, its patriarch, and his legacy of life not with sole, silent veneration, but by commiserating with one another about the love they'd shared for their dearly departed. Though the pain was still present, it receded from the light they felt growing within themselves—an inner illumination which soon culminated in smiles that outshone the moon.

"You remember Glenn and Maggie's wedding?"

"Of course. I recall Beth was even more excited than they were. She couldn't believe we'd taken in an actual reverend."

"Yeah. Maybe there is still such a thang as luck. Speakin'-a Beth, you remember that song she sang at the reception?"

"I remember Tyreese trying to make it a duet…"

"Yeah, but what was it called?"

"I don't know."

"Mmm. I was just thinkin' about how relaxin' it was and how much it felt like _home_, if that makes any sense. I think it was Judith's favorite. She loved Beth's singin'."

"That girl had a lot of her father's hope in her voice, just like her sister had his nerve."

"Yes, she did. You could always count on Maggie; you knew she could do anythang you gave her to do, and her husband…I wouldn't even be here if it weren't for him. He saved my life in the beginning."

"I thought your friend, Morgan, saved your life."

"They both did, but Glenn was more fortunate; he had people left to fight for."

"And he did."

"And he did. Prior to his helpin' me, I dunno if I'd ever met someone that loyal, that altruistic. Glenn was…an impressive man. I'd always hoped he and Maggie'd be able to start their own family there. They deserved it."

"We all deserved that chance, especially Carol, considering what she'd been through. She seemed like the right person to raise Lizzie and Mika."

"…I wish she'd been able to keep those girls, too."

"Know who else would've been good with them?"

"Who?"

"Tyreese."

"I could see that. Tyreese was a good man. Amiable, helpful. 'Course I wasn't thinkin' that when we were drivin' our fists into each other's faces…"

"Of course."

"But I knew how he felt and I hated that he hadda go through it. That whole situation was a mess. I wish he coulda found some closure before…"

"Me, too. But he was strong, like Sasha, like the rest of us. Rick, I was the last person to leave the prison grounds, and I didn't see any of their bodies."

"Well, they're the other reason we're makin' a try for Terminus, aren't they? We gotta believe that that's where they'd go if they survived."

"…Do you think Daryl will be there?"

"What makes you ask that?"

"I have no doubt he's alive, but you all said he started out a loner. If he _is_ alone now, do you think he'd head straight to a compound full of strangers on the off chance that some of us might be there?"

"Even though he had Merle, Daryl did start off in this alone, but I've been with him all the way, been privileged enough to see him evolve into somethin' greater than any-a us thought he was gonna be. If there's anythang I know about Daryl, it's that he's not gonna come outta this the same way he went in. You came back for your family—he'll do the same."

"Well, if anyone's gonna find us, it'll be him."

"Yeah, I have a feelin' we'll be seein' Daryl and the others pretty soon."

Michonne borrowed some of the faith her partner inherited from Hershel. "I hope so. It'll—"

A thump in the distance led her to snap off the end of her sentence. Rick lifted himself halfway off the ground and blinked the firelight from his eyes while Michonne sprang to her feet. They studied the dark woods on either side of the road.

"You see anythang?"

"No. I think we should sit up, though. I don't wanna chance falling asleep and lying down doesn't help."

"True," he agreed, pulling himself onto his feet, unzipping his coat a bit as he continued to look around. "I was gettin' a little too warm anyway."

"Mm-hmm. Of course, if you'd shaved when you had the chance—"

"Oh, come on."

Michonne shrugged, dragged up a log, and took a seat. "I'm just sayin' I got you a razor."

Nodding at the recollection, Rick rolled his log next to hers and plopped down. He nudged her shoulder with his and smiled. "I didn't really have an opportunity to use it, but I kinda like the beard now."

She slipped her right arm through his left and took his hand. "It grow on you?"

"_Yes_."

Rick leaned in until his forehead touched Michonne's temple; her expression remained deadpan.

"That was the worst joke I've ever heard. Congratulations."

"Thank you, thank you."

In spite of herself, Michonne found her mien blooming to match his beam. Rick gingerly trailed his face across hers until their features were level.

"It's not so bad, is it?" he murmured.

"No," she replied softly.

His words came closer, bounced off her full lips.

"It's not all bad."

"No…"

Their kiss had scarcely been born before a walker stumbled out from the thicket across the road. Without missing a beat, the couple disentangled and arose, blades in hand. Together, they charged cagily.

"Got it," Michonne muttered. Once Rick was out of her peripheral vision, she swung her katana at the corpse's neck, recoiling from the short-lived spray of blood. However, before she could face front, another walker staggered out of the dark, its gnarled hands extended to seize her.

"DOWN!" Rick hissed sharply.

Michonne hastily dropped into a squat; Rick took a fistful of grimy T-shirt and yanked the walker forward to meet his knife. Michonne sidled out from underneath them, gripped her twice-dead assailant by the boots, and hauled it into the ditch. After putting down the other's severed head, Rick followed suit. When finished, he left his partner to scrutinize the area further and swiveled to face the opposite direction. His intense glower first probed the car and then the forest threshold for movement. They stood poised, cautious but confident, for the next ten minutes.

"I don't hear anything," Michonne volunteered.

"Yeah, well, we didn't hear those either," replied Rick. He held his position. Michonne appeared at his side.

"Know what else I'm not hearing?"

He turned to face her. She pointed her katana at the dented blue car. Rick's expression softened as he and Michonne approached the vehicle and peered through the glass. Carl was flat on his back, breathing deeply through his mouth, supporting his feet against the car door. His left arm, which he'd awkwardly slung over his eyes, twitched mildly.

The parents smiled gently. Eventually Michonne drifted to the front of the car, leaving Rick once again to linger in a private moment with the most important person left in their world. Yet this time, she did speak.

"Maybe he'll finally have a night of peace."

Rick joined her in front of the car grille's crooked smile, displaying one of his own. "A silent night?"

"Well," Michonne whispered as her partner's face drew closer, "it hasn't been so silent."

Rick rested his forehead against hers and together they stood, listening.

A cacophony of creaks pierced the couple's eardrums. They jerked apart, whipping their heads toward the source. Michonne raised her katana but lowered it immediately.

Carl's body had apparently tired of its uncomfortable positioning and demanded to be pulled into an upright stance. As the young man adjusted himself, he mumbled a few audible grunts, though his eyes never opened.

Rick and Michonne sighed with more relief than irritation and crept back to their logs. In case Carl awakened and decided to toss them a cursory glance, they began to engage in small talk, gliding back into separate entities as artlessly as they'd become one.

Though interrupted, downplayed, and continually muted by the musicians themselves, their song never stopped.

And it was resonant.


End file.
